Kathleen Molloy

On his blog, Hugh Mcguire asks “What if the Book Business collapses?”

 It would be a disaster for the armies of Canadian publicists. Mayhem for the distributors, printers, and book designers. What of the book sellers? What of the Canadian library system?

Would we have to recycle all of our old favourites?

Would we have to book cross already loved stories instead of churning out new fables with unbent covers?As an author, I should panic at the thought of the Canadian book industry imploding. Yet as a reader I find comfort in the idea. Weird. 

Somehow, and maybe this is me being naïve, … somehow I think we’d revert to the oral tradition.  I think we’d get back to storytelling.Reading has become a solitary pursuit (save for book cubs).  Yet when sharing a story you are never alone.

So … what if the book business collapses? What if no single novel is printed in Canada in 2009?

Jobs will be lost; this is certain and regrettable. You can bet that Harper won’t be bailing out the book business if that happens. Indie bookstores would close if they couldn’t keep old favorites in stock. Literary agents would migrate to the US.  Canadians wouldn’t get Rebecca Eckler’s next book in the hip mommy series “My Kid Lost her First Tooth and I can’t Find it!”

No new books.

But think of the stories we’d tell.

Ms. Julie loves books.  She really loves books.  No, I mean loves books. She loves them so much that she rates them on a Kiss Curve and stamps lipstick kisses on her favourite covers. Her crushes lean toward Quebec writers, particularly Quebec writers pumping out English works.

Ms. Julie has been known to stalk her favourite English writing Quebec authors at book fairs, festivals and Expos and she often photoshops herself into their pictures on the Internet.

Some might say Ms. Julie is a bibliopath.

And she is.

Sort of.

Ms. Julie is the offspring of the Quebec Writers’ Federation and the Association of English-language Publishers of Quebec.  Born in 2008, she quickly grew to become the gorgeous Montreal-based librarian / book junkie all English-writing Quebec authors have come to adore.

The crush is mutual … and slightly embarrassing.

But can you blame us? Check out her blog.  

http://lovemsjulie.blogspot.com/

And then check out the adoptive parents that put convinced writer/translator/reviewer Adrianna Palanca up to slide into Ms. Julie’s comfortable librarian flats.

www.qwf.org

http://www.aelaq.org